Where did September, October and Half of November GO???

Whoa, I can't believe how fast time is slipping away. I've been busy with everything but sewing, but that should start to change shortly. The thing that took up the majority of my off time the last couple of months was planning the 2010 Annual Meeting for the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Sewing Guild. We had Mary Mulari as our guest speaker. The meeting was great, everything seemed to go smoothly - and all enjoyed Mary's presentation. I came home with tons of new ideas and the items needed to do some of them. I can't wait to get started, but first I really must clean my sewing room again and put everything away. I don't know how things can get so messed up when I'm not even sewing! The picture is what it should look like, but right now you can't even see any white space on this table or anywhere else. I'm too embarrassed to even snap a picture of it.

Ah - September - National Sewing Month

September is National Sewing Month - I plan to do a lot of sewing this month. I hope the word "plan" turns into "did". I so need to re-bond with my sewing room and get creative!

New Serger!

I'm back at it again - never satisfied. I have a perfectly good serger, but I've always wanted a Baby Lock. Went to a day with Margaret Tully, Baby Lock serger educator extrordinaire, at Select Sewing Service in Indianapolis last week and came home with a new Evolution. Can't wait to get up to speed with it and start accomplishing some projects! The ease of threading is what put me over the top. I'll share some projects when I get something done.

Field Trip to Vogue Fabrics - Chicago (Roosevelt Road)

The Indianapolis Chapter of the American Sewing Guild had their annual bus trip last Saturday. This year's trip was up to the Roosevelt Road area of Chicago. We had a wonderful time and came home with lots of goodies.

Our main stop of the day was at Vogue Fabrics. Who wouldn't love that store? If you love fabric and you are in the area, you owe it to yourself to stop in and see them! The customer service was the best!

Sole Cool Hot Iron Bag

A while back I got the Quickie Chick's SOLE COOL HOT IRON BAG pattern from my local quilt shop. I have now made 4 of these bags, one for me, and as gifts my mother, sister-in-law and a friend. The bag is a great way to carry your iron to/from retreats, workshops, classes, etc. The pattern was very clear and easy to follow.

The pattern is for 2 sizes, large and small. The bags I made were the large ones, but I will probably make a small one for my small travel iron.

I've now used the bag several times and it is so nice not to have to wait for your iron to cool when you are packing up just so you can transport it. The only modification I made to the pattern was in additional to the InsulBright and batting, I also added a layer of teflon material. No particular reason, I just wanted to be double sure.

Bernina Endless Embroidery - Table Runner

I made a table runner last week using the project from Bernina (Bernina USA Projects - Ode to Ireland Table Runner) for the 830 to learn how to use the endless embroidery feature. I was hesitant tackling this, but in the end it came out great. It took a little practice to figure out how to adjust to get the designs lined up, but now that I've got it, I can't wait to try more projects using the Endless Embroidery feature of the 830.

The photo below is a closeup of the designs.

Every time I do something new on this machine, I love it more and more.

Wedding is History - I'm Back Again

I've been busy the last few months making my daughter-in-law's wedding dress, so I haven't been able to post much. Now that the wedding is over, I thought I'd share some pictures of the dress in progress and then the finished dress.

Next is the finished dress with the beautiful bride and groom.

I had a blast making it (even though it stressed me out to the max) and learned a lot of new things along the way, including how to install an invisible zipper. In all the years I've been sewing, I've never done one, and can't believe how easy it was; there will be plenty more invisible zipper installations in the future!